Black Cake took all its ideas and so eloquently and emotionally conveyed them. The last ingredient a great novel must have, of course, is excellent writing.
But whose tradition, exactly? Black cake was essentially a plum pudding handed down to the Caribbeans by colonizers from a cold country.Īnd then this wonderfully layered story takes it even further linking between the overall theme of roots and where we come from with Byron’s job in deep sea exploration (one of the most interesting job roles a character in a book I’ve read has had for a while):Įverything we need to know about our past and our future is here, Byron tells the camera, pointing at a screen showing remote-sensing images. Something that is also looked at is the origins of the black cake so loved by Benny and Byron’s mother and how cultures merge and evolve: It asks if not knowing where we really come from can affect who we are and – interestingly – if learning who we really are can have an impact.īenny feels like, the more she knows of her mother, the more of her she will lose. Key themes Black Cake explores are heritage and identity. ‘This is your heritage.’Īnother ingredient is themes that make you think and Black Cake is packed full of them… Heritage & Identity She wants them to listen to her story, of where she came from and, when the time is right, eat her famous black cake. In her will, she requested something a little unusual. In another narrative, we meet siblings Benny and Byron who are dealing with the fact their beloved mother, Eleanor has just died. Growing up half Black / half Chinese on the island of Trinidad and Tobago, her life takes turns she has no control over and she had to dig deep to ensure her survival. So, what are the ingredients? Well, characters that you care about are key and in Covey, we certainly have that. Opening sentence: He should have known it would come to this. Much like the recipe that takes centre stage in the story, it’s all about having the right ingredients and this story definitely does… Not a genre I actually read a lot of, so what I mean is that sweeping generational tales have to be really good to entice me. Black Cake is described as a family saga.
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